Monitoring the Future (MTF) Series

The Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the
Lifestyles and Values of Youth annual surveys were designed to explore
changes in important values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of
contemporary American youth. The surveys began in 1975 with 12th-grade
students only. Eighth- and 10th-grade student surveys were added in
1991 under the title Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of
American Youth (8th- and 10th-Grade Surveys) and, in 1996, the
designation "12th-Grade Survey" was added to the titles of the
subsequent 12th-grade surveys. When examining the issues covered by
the series, two general types of tasks may be distinguished. The first
task is to provide a systematic and accurate description of the youth
population of interest in a given year and to quantify the direction
and rate of change occurring over time. The second task, more analytic
than descriptive, involves the explanation of the relationships and
trends observed. Each year, large, distinct, nationally representative
samples of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students in the United States
are asked to respond to drug use and demographic questions, as well as
to additional questions on a variety of subjects, including attitudes
toward religion, parental influences, changing roles of women,
educational aspirations, self-esteem, exposure to sex and drug
education, and violence and crime - both in and out of school. In each
grade, students are randomly assigned to complete questionnaires with
a subset of topical questions in addition to a set of core questions
on demographics and drug use. Each form of the questionnaire generates
a corresponding data file. For a guide to the questions asked each
year in each questionnaire, along with their subject areas and
variable names, users may refer to the question indexes under the
Reports & Related Sites link below.